World Notes China

Officials in Peking have acknowledged the AIDS epidemic, but they are apparently convinced that the disease is a foreign scourge. Public health authorities confirmed last week that foreign students have been asked to undergo tests for exposure to the virus. In addition, beginning next month, visitors who plan to study in China for a year or more must prove that they are free of the AIDS virus. There are currently about 10,000 foreign students in the country.

So far, China has reported only one case of AIDS. In 1985 an Argentine tourist succumbed to the illness in a Peking hospital. In October four Chinese hemophiliacs who had received an imported blood coagulant tested positive for AIDS antibodies, which indicates that they have been exposed to the virus but does not mean they will come down with the disease.